Extension imminent - just how empty do rooms need to be?

[Jessforless]

Our extension is going to start in a couple of weeks. We will be knocking through a couple of rooms and completely removing two old additions before building a wraparound.

I’ve completely emptied the additions of course, but in the rooms where we’re knocking through, can I leave larger furniture? Really unsure what to do with dining table, heavy sideboard, sofa etc.

also, I’ve heard the dust is crazy, should I pack up all ornaments / books / cushions etc in other rooms that are untouched?

Pack up and move as much as possible, the dust will be horrendous. Also move furniture out of all rooms involved, the builders will need the space.

Dust will be horrific! Think we left our large furniture but at the end it was covered in awful dust that took an age to clear. Ours was dining table and side board and was in a room where walls were knocked through.

It was the worst thing ever but so worth it at the end.

I remember when we had some building work and the builder said we just needed to cover the furniture with sheets. When I got home the first day, the whole house was covered in red brick dust! I can opt stress the importance of removing as much as possible, covering everything else and if possible putting plastic sheets over the doorways.

I would remove everything in any rooms affected. The builders will need room and the risk of damage to furniture if its in the way. We put our furniture in other rooms and just lived on top of it for months! We moved the dining table into the living room to use as the kitchen, sideboard into hall and sofa into a bedroom!

The builders told us they want us to completely empty all rooms affected by the extension. Also, we apparently need to empty all upper rooms on the back of the house (for a single storey extension) which we didn't realise, because they need to remove 4-6 bricks above the floor to get the steels in. They said all the dust and dirt would get in as this is a messy process.

So it's way more work than we thought! And we have to rip up a bit of our wood flooring upstairs and try to re-lay it afterwards also

@Sanch1 did you live in the house while it was being extended? Were the other rooms not affected by the extension okay?

Yes we did, we had one room downstairs and all the upstairs rooms, luckily they were super quick, lots of resource, so it only took 2 months. Generally it was ok, other than dust escaping, and when they put the new lintol in downstairs the skirting upstairs in my daughters room fell off and you could see through to the outside, bit scary, but was all sorted and fixed.

Thanks everyone. Looks like we might need to hire a self storage unit for a while then.

or DH things we could just sell our dining table / sofa / larger items that are hard to put upstairs and buy new when the house is done. This sounds risky to me, I’m imagining running out of money and having to sit in a bean bag to watch TV 😂

@Sanch1 were you in dust constantly while living there? I'll have a toddler and a newborn when the extension starts. We will be away for three weeks on holiday, but I'm wondering if I need to sort a short term rental for the other three to five weeks

It wasn't terrible. Had a 1 yr old at the time plus 5 and 8 yr olds, just vacuumed and wiped surfaces. The builders were good at cleaning up the actual building works each night. And they boarded and taped the doors that could stay closed etc

Do not sell furniture- I would not bank on having any money left! We've just finished extension / renovation and contingencies and money for buying new furniture quickly gets eaten up.

Absolutely move everything out of rooms where walls or doorways are being knocked through, dust is horrific. I would also remove anything easily removed from any rooms that lead off rooms with work being done - it's gets everywhere. Also consider routes through the house - our floors were absolutely filthy.

Luckily we were able to move out, and put the majority of our stuff into storage. The actual storage was very cheap for direction of build, we used a removal firm so cost the same as moving house really.

Biggest mistake was storing things in the loft - and then last minute knocking a doorway through into new roof space of extension. Everything up there is coasted in red brick dust, and trying to clean/hoover in a dark poorly ventilated space is a nightmare!

When we did an extension on our home about 10 years ago, we hired self storage unit and had it for the duration of the works - definitely a good idea to protect your furniture from damage but is a cost to factor in as can be expensive!

Move as much as you can- the dust is insane. We didn’t do anything with ornaments in rooms that weren’t being touched, just kept doors closed. We emptied all our kitchen - table etc out so the builders could get on. I wouldn’t sell and buy new though in case you run out of money